It has been suggested that increased sympathetic activity and arterial chemoreceptors are important for the high blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). Electrolytic lesions of the commissural nucleus of the solitary tract (commNTS) abolish (1) the cardiovascular responses to chemoreflex activation with potassium cyanide (KCN) in normotensive rats and (2) the hypertension that ...

Schnorr’s algorithm for finding an approximation for the shortest nonzero vector in an n-dimensional lattice depends on a parameter k. He proved that for a fixed k ≤ n his algorithm (block 2k-reduction) provides a lattice vector whose length is greater than the length of a shortest nonzero vector in the lattice by at most a factor of (2k)2n/k. (The time required by the algorithm depends on k.) ...

Biochemical estimation of NADH concentration is a useful method for monitoring cellular metabolism, because the NADH/NAD+ reduction-oxidation pair is crucial for electron transfer in the mitochondrial electron chain. In this article, we present a novel method for deriving functional maps of intracellular reduction-oxidation ratio in vivo via measurement of the fluorescence lifetimes and the rat...

The quinone antibiotic streptonigrin is believed to kill bacteria by promoting formation of oxygen radicals. This antibiotic has also been used to select resistant bacterial mutants, some of which vary in iron utilization. We examined the effects of streptonigrin on Neisseria gonorrhoeae and several types of gonococcal mutants. Streptonigrin (0.025 microgram/ml) efficiently killed gonococcal st...

Parkinson's disease is a common progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta. Mitochondrial dysfunction has been strongly implicated in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. Thus, therapeutic approaches that improve mitochondrial function may prove to be beneficial. Previously, we have documented that n...

It is often claimed that programmed cell death (pcd) exists in plants and that a form of pcd known as the hypersensitive response is triggered as a defense mechanism by microbial pathogens. However, in contrast to animals, no feature in plants universally identifies or defines pcd. We have looked for a hallmark of pcd in animal cells, namely, DNA cleavage, in plant cells killed by infection wit...

Antimycin A, KCN, and 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium ion (MPP+) all produced a marked depletion of cellular GSH levels in freshly isolated hepatocytes. This effect was consistently observed before the onset of cytotoxicity and seemed to be correlated with the loss of cellular ATP induced by these mitochondrial poisons. Concentrations of GSSG remained unchanged both intracellularly and extracellula...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain PAO1 grew with the detergent sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The growth started with the formation of macroscopic cell aggregates which consisted of respiring cells embedded in an extracellular matrix composed of acidic polysaccharides and DNA. Damaged and uncultivable cells accumulated in these aggregates compared to those cells that remained suspended. We investiga...

By using the fluorescent Ca2+ indicator fura 2, we show that the concentration of free calcium in the cytoplasm of Leishmania donovani promastigotes is maintained at very low levels (73.5 +/- 10-94 +/- 8 nM at a [Ca2+]i range of 0-1 mM). The maintenance of low [Ca2+]i is energy-dependent as it is disrupted by KCN, H+-ATPase inhibitors, and ionophores. KCN, nigericin, and N,N'-dicyclohexylcarbod...

Through the monitoring of the auto-fluorescent mitochondrial metabolic coenzymes, NADH (Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide) and FAD (Flavoprotein Adenine Dinucleotide), the redox state of metabolism can be probed in real time in many intact organs, but its use has not been fully developed in lungs. The ratio of these fluorophores, (NADH/FAD), referred to as the mitochondrial redox ratio (RR), ca...